Home Brew, Take 2 – Fall Edition

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I brewed another beer! This time, I enlisted the help of another friend who homebrews, Jeff Kupko, as well as my BFF, Colleen. For this go-round we decided to create an apple cinnamon caramel ale just in time for the fall season. Armed with the knowledge I gained last time I brewed and a fresh apple cider slushie I embarked on my next adventure in brewing.

So, why apple cinnamon caramel? Well, a few weeks ago I saw a post from Blue Moon advertising their Caramel Apple Spiced Ale and was instantly intrigued. I’m not a huge fan of Blue Moon personally, but found the idea of a beer intending to taste like apple pie quite interesting. I tweeted about my intrigue and was quickly asked by Jeff if Colleen and I would like to try and brew our own version. Of course I would.

We started brainstorming ways to create this beer so that none of the individual flavors would overpower the rest while still maintaining a beer flavor, as opposed to a cider flavor. After some discussion, it was agreed that an amber ale with fresh apples, apple cider, caramel and fall spices added to it would do the trick.

When it comes to brewing with fruits and veggies, there are a lot of things that can go wrong and ruin your beer. The most important thing to remember when using these ingredients is to only buy organic. In case you missed the memo about non-organic foods, they’re full of chemicals and grossness that have the potential to kill your yeast and even contaminate your beer completely. When brewing with any commercially made ingredients, in our case caramel and apple cider, it is once again important to know what’s already added to it. If you can’t pronounce everything on the label, stay away! Any and all preservatives are a big no-no as these will also ruin your beer.

In the end, we weren’t able to add caramel to our beer like we hoped because we couldn’t find any all-natural caramel. We picked up our organic apples and natural apple cider at Strites’ Orchard.

We decided to do two batches of this beer to ensure that the three of us we would each have plenty to go around to friends and family. This made for a very long Tuesday evening as each batch took at least 2 hours. So, what will we call this fall concoction? You’ll just have to wait and see!